1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the purchasing of digital media assets and, more specifically, to the purchase of media asset bundles.
2. Description of the Related Art
Traditionally, music has been purchased at music stores or music departments of larger stores. A consumer will visit the music store or department and manually browse for albums or compact discs (CDs) of interest. After the consumer selects an album or CD of interest, the consumer proceeds to a checkout register to pay for the album or CD being purchased.
In recent years music delivery or distribution over the Internet has become popular. Due to the advances in efficient file formats, such as MP3 and MPEG4, the size of media files has become small enough to make their download via the Internet practical. Also, technological advances have led to higher-speed Internet connections and lower cost of memory. The combination of these advances make downloading media files, such as for music and videos, manageable and not too time consuming.
One popular approach to online music distribution is Apple Computer's iTunes® online music store. Consumers may use the iTunes® online music store to purchase music either as individual music tracks or in albums of songs. Other music stores such as Rhapsody™ and Napster™ have also been employed to purchase music online.
However, one limitation common to online music stores (generically referred to as online media stores) is in the limited options a consumer has when purchasing music albums. Currently, a music album available from an online media store contains a group of music files and no other file types. However, there are cases when a distributor of a music album may want to distribute other media file types along with the music files, such as non-playable file types (e.g., text or graphics). It is therefore desirable to enable the online distribution of media bundles that contain disparate media file types.